p. 4 | EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Mar 7, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 10.

EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH.

By G.

SOME people think there was no faith connected with the typical ordinances of the Mosaic dispensation. But that is a mistake. The idea is akin to that other mistaken notion, that Gospel work in the earth did not begin until the advent of Christ in the flesh. The typical sacrifices and ceremonial feasts were just as significant object-lessons in pointing forward to Christ as are the present ordinances of the church as memorials of His humility, His death, and His resurrection. Those Levitical ordinances were of great benefit, as teaching the Gospel of Christ by object-lesson.

But those ordinances were of value to those who observed them only as they did so by faith in Him whom they prefigured. God especially ordained all those ceremonials for the people to observe, just as He appointed the ordinances now observed by the church. But "without faith it is impossible to please Him." This was just as true in all ages before the advent of Christ as in the so-called Christian dispensation. God was displeased with the mere formality of service in former days (1 Sam. 2: 27-30; Prov. 15:8), just as the perversion of His ordinances displeases Him to-day (1 Cor. 12:17-30). "The word preached to them did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it," and the same cause will produce a like effect to-day. But there were some who did believe, and they are set forth as examples of faith to us. See Hebrews 11.